


Crow

by bklt



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, vague mention of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-02-28 21:58:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13280673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bklt/pseuds/bklt
Summary: "You broke your promise, you know. You promised me that I wouldn't lose you, but here I am back in Kirkwall and you're not. Funny, that."Isabela sends a message in a bottle that she knows Hawke will never read.





	Crow

Three times Isabela had come to Kirkwall.

In a decade and some years past she dragged her battered body to land as her beloved ship sank uselessly to the bottom of the sea. That was the first, soaked and shipwrecked and stumbling into the Hanged Man with nothing left. She never meant to come here then, and the chains that so marked Kirkwall may as well have been on herself. The second, redemption in her hands and every mistake made right again, only to storm out by dawn.

On this third time, she walked down the steep rocky slope to the shore of the Wounded Coast, the jagged rocks cut into the permanently grey sky above like daggers, masts of long-sunk ships dotting the water in the distance like a graveyard. In her right hand she cradled a glass bottle close to her stomach, the other pages of rolled parchment. Her long, dashing blue coat was draped around her shoulders like a cape, a faded piece of red cloth tied around her arm. She looked older now, creases around her nose and wrinkles under her eyes that still gleamed copper-bright and clever. Isabela stopped abruptly, shakily breathing in the salty air in an attempt to calm herself. She sat on a piece of driftwood and slowly unfurled the pages she held to read what she had written. Isabela knew that she would never be satisfied with it, and the countless drafts that came before it littering her quarters was proof. Eventually she conceded. She figured that imperfect words were better than nothing said at all, and poured out all she could like blood from an open vein.

 

_Hawke,_

 

_You broke your promise, you know. You promised me that I wouldn't lose you, but here I am back in Kirkwall and you're not. Funny, that._

_It’s alright, I forgive you. You always forgave me so I guess I can return the favour. That’s your damned influence; forgiveness, that is._

 

_I’m drunk which isn't surprising, but look; the first thing you said to me after I upped and left for three years was some joke about how the alcohol tasted like shit, like nothing happened at all. A joke and a smile, as if it was enough to make it all go away. Luckily, it was. That’s how it was with you. You were always so… I don't know. You were always so._

 

_If we saw each other again, we’d pick up right where we left off. You’d say something insignificant, inappropriate, or in poor taste- probably all of those combined. I’d pretend I hated your jokes and you’d pretend like you were offended. It’d all be very humourous and good and we’d kiss while we sailed off into the sunset like the ending to a trashy romance novel. I imagine it a lot really, all the things we’d say and do if everything worked out, like this all was a cruel prank and we could laugh about it later. For all the the stories they tell and will tell of the Champion of Kirkwall, they’ll never get it right. You were a Fereldan turnip who hated spiders and liked chasing dragons, who still ate her mother’s cookies at the age of twenty nine with a big grin. We’d walk by the coastline while it rained because you liked the smell and the sound of raindrops on rocks and the feeling of getting warm by the fireplace afterwards. At the end of the day you would drink until you stumbled into my bed and kick me while you slept, and you’d talk about how I kept all the blankets to myself in the morning. There would be whiskey and tea and toast and we’d groan hungover about things that didn't matter and do it all again. I’ll let them have a larger than life portrait of you, a tale they’ll read until the world runs out of ages. They’ll never know what a wonderful, incorrigible ass you were, how you were just you. That's a secret between you and me that I can keep._

 

_The point is, I miss you. I miss your bright blue eyes and ridiculous black hair that you wouldn't comb like some petulant child, or how you’d complain about your bad hip and whine when you were sick. I miss kissing you with your body under mine and how you felt around my fingers. I miss your voice and I miss your exasperated sighs when something went poorly, which it always did. I miss a lot of things, and they’re mostly about you._

 

_I have a problem though. The other day I forgot what hand that small freckle on your finger was and realized that piece by piece you will fade away and all I’ll be able to remember are indiscriminate parts and what I can see in a faded image of you. I don’t want to forget the small things that seemed so trivial at the time but are now so important because I want to keep every scrap hidden away like a treasure I can find for later. The harder I grasp the more it escapes me and there are things I don’t even know are lost. But sometimes I’ll see a bird and I’ll think it’s you in some silly, profound poetic way. You know, because your name sounds like one and even if it’s not a hawk but a crow it’s close enough because it reminds me of the colour of your hair, and because it happened to have its head turned to me it must be a sign. Because maybe it is. Caw three times if it’s you._

 

_I don't know if there’s a Maker or if I’ll see you again and all of that existential rubbish everyone worries themselves over. For the second time in my life, I’d like to be proven wrong. Until then, I’ll take whatever is thrown at me. If a crow looking at me or a red scarf I see at a market stall is all I can get and it’ll remind me if you, I won't be picky about it. I’ve never exactly been discerning._

 

_You always went off to be a big stupid hero, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it’d catch up to you someday. I used to be angry about it and tell myself that I should never have come back to Kirkwall and let myself run and run and run and never looked back with that blasted tome in my hands. I wouldn't have fallen for you and maybe if I listened I wouldn't have to be like this, scared of forgetting you or realizing that this hole in my guts will only die down but never go away. You know what's strange, Hawke? It turns out that for all of that pain, I don't regret it. I won't regret every memory and touch and everything I’ve ever had with you. I didn't want to experience one good thing in my life because I was afraid it’d be taken away and I didn't want to be hurt again. That’s no way to live, is it? I ran for my whole life, and you were a place I could finally call home._

 

_I love you. That’s what this all comes down to. I love you so much that it hurts to write and it hurts to feel it. I know that you loved me back and it will tide me over. It has to. Like I said, I’ll take what I can get. This would have seemed so unlike me to say a lifetime ago, but here it is; your love was- is - more than enough._

 

_I told you once that it was always about you. It still is, and always will be._

 

Isabela carefully rolled up the parchment and placed the cork securely into the bottle, giving it one last look and feeling a knot tighten within her. She walked up to the shoreline and felt the waves crash against the her well-worn boots, the rhythm and thrum matching the beat of her heart. It had the reverence of a funeral rite, where the ceremony was more for the benefit of those attending than the dead. It was a promise of closure, the finality of seeing ashes in an urn and a sign that the healing could begin. It didn’t feel good or right, and none of this would be comforting in the way it should be, and she suspected it never would. Even so, she couldn’t move on unless she started somewhere, and she had to let go. She had to see the bottle they once shared together on an unremarkable, forgettable night carried off like a burial at sea where she knew Hawke would never read its contents. The message and all she could say with wrong sounding words would be out there somewhere, free from the suffocating confines of her body where it curled up and dug its claws into her chest.  

Isabela crouched down to the water and kissed the bottle before gently placing it in the waves to be adorned with seafoam. With one last squeeze, she released it to the mercy of the sea. She untied the red cloth on her arm, ready to let it flutter away on the warm breeze before her arm locked up in second thought. _No_ , she thought. _You don't have to bury every piece._

She stood there for some time, the orange and pinks of sunset creeping into the grey. Tears rolled down her face and into the sand as the bottle disappeared into horizon and out of sight forever. Raising the cloth into the air, she waved, and the words she couldn't bring herself to say for so long finally left her lips.

 

“Goodbye, Hawke.”

 

\----

 

Three times Isabela had come to Kirkwall, a beginning, middle, and end.

A murder of crows perched like city guards on the walls of the docks as Isabela hoisted her sails for a destination undecided. A horn sounded nearby and made them scatter, spreading their wings to go somewhere far, far away from Kirkwall and its chains, away from the dilapidated shacks of Lowtown and dark tunnels below the streets. As they flew off into the sky, one remained behind, unstartled. When she stopped to stare, she could have sworn she saw the crow looking back at her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm glad I chose to not leave Hawke in the fade, but I thought it'd be fun/torturous to imagine how Isabela would react. This is my first fic, and I hope you enjoyed it!


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